Whoopi Goldberg suspended by ABC for Holocaust comments
US actress and Oscar-winning TV personality Whoopi Goldberg. (AFP pic)
NEW YORK: US actress Whoopi Goldberg on Tuesday was suspended from the talk show she hosts for two weeks after saying that the Nazi genocide of six million Jews “was not about race.”
Despite an apology from the host of “The View” talk show, ABC News President Kim Godwin said she had decided it was not enough.
“Effective immediately, I am suspending Whoopi Goldberg for two weeks for her wrong and hurtful comments,” Godwin said in a statement posted on the TV channel’s public relations Twitter account.
“While Whoopi has apologized, I’ve asked her to take time to reflect and learn about the impact of her comments,” Godwin said.
The Oscar-winning TV personality said on the ABC’s “The View” that the Holocaust involved “two white groups of people.”
“On today’s show, I said the Holocaust ‘is not about race, but about man’s inhumanity to man’. I should have said it is about both,” Goldberg wrote in a Twitter apology late Monday.
“The Jewish people around the world have always had my support and that will never waiver. I’m sorry for the hurt I have caused,” the 66-year-old added.
After Goldberg’s comments, critics pointed out that race was central to the genocide, with the Nazis believing themselves to be a master race.
“No @WhoopiGoldberg, the #Holocaust was about the Nazi’s systematic annihilation of the Jewish people – who they deemed to be an inferior race,” tweeted Jonathan Greenblatt, head of the Anti-Defamation League.
“They dehumanized them and used this racist propaganda to justify slaughtering six million Jews. Holocaust distortion is dangerous,” he added.
The US Holocaust Museum posted on Twitter that “racism was central to Nazi ideology.”
“Jews were not defined by religion, but by race. Nazi racist beliefs fueled genocide and mass murder,” it said, without referencing Goldberg’s comments.
The host spoke during a discussion about a Tennessee school banning the 1986 graphic novel “Maus: A Survivor’s Tale,” about life at the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning book, which depicts Jews as mice and Nazis as cats, has long been heralded as a powerful and accurate depiction of the Nazi murder of millions of Jews during World War II.
Godwin herself said in her statement that “the entire ABC News organization stands in solidarity with our Jewish colleagues, friends, family and communities.”
NEW YORK: US actress Whoopi Goldberg on Tuesday was suspended from the talk show she hosts for two weeks after saying that the Nazi genocide of six million Jews “was not about race.”
Despite an apology from the host of “The View” talk show, ABC News President Kim Godwin said she had decided it was not enough.
“Effective immediately, I am suspending Whoopi Goldberg for two weeks for her wrong and hurtful comments,” Godwin said in a statement posted on the TV channel’s public relations Twitter account.
“While Whoopi has apologized, I’ve asked her to take time to reflect and learn about the impact of her comments,” Godwin said.
The Oscar-winning TV personality said on the ABC’s “The View” that the Holocaust involved “two white groups of people.”
“On today’s show, I said the Holocaust ‘is not about race, but about man’s inhumanity to man’. I should have said it is about both,” Goldberg wrote in a Twitter apology late Monday.
“The Jewish people around the world have always had my support and that will never waiver. I’m sorry for the hurt I have caused,” the 66-year-old added.
After Goldberg’s comments, critics pointed out that race was central to the genocide, with the Nazis believing themselves to be a master race.
“No @WhoopiGoldberg, the #Holocaust was about the Nazi’s systematic annihilation of the Jewish people – who they deemed to be an inferior race,” tweeted Jonathan Greenblatt, head of the Anti-Defamation League.
“They dehumanized them and used this racist propaganda to justify slaughtering six million Jews. Holocaust distortion is dangerous,” he added.
The US Holocaust Museum posted on Twitter that “racism was central to Nazi ideology.”
“Jews were not defined by religion, but by race. Nazi racist beliefs fueled genocide and mass murder,” it said, without referencing Goldberg’s comments.
The host spoke during a discussion about a Tennessee school banning the 1986 graphic novel “Maus: A Survivor’s Tale,” about life at the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning book, which depicts Jews as mice and Nazis as cats, has long been heralded as a powerful and accurate depiction of the Nazi murder of millions of Jews during World War II.
Godwin herself said in her statement that “the entire ABC News organization stands in solidarity with our Jewish colleagues, friends, family and communities.”
It is not censorship... it was stupidity on Whoopi Goldberg's part, and she paid a very slight price for it.
ReplyDeleteThe strength - and evil- exhibited by Nazi Germany was its meticulous attention to detail in executing The Final Solution. Everything was documented in exquisite and horrifying detail.
How many thousand people were rounded up from which European city, and why, how many trains containing how many thousand people were despatched daily, which concentration camps they were sent to, how many people were exterminated daily.
There is absolutely no doubt from the extensive documentation that the principal target and purpose of The Final Solution aka Holocaust was the extermination of Jews from Germany and Nazi-occupied Europe.
Innocent people whose only crime was their Jewish religion and ethnicity.
Other classes of people considered Undesirables were no doubt also caught up and liquidated in the Death Camps, but... I repeat... the principal target were the Jews and the principal objective their extermination as a racial group.
The Nazi Adminstrators stated it themselves, well documented, there is no need to deny their own statements.
Whoopi Goldberg was being stupid to say "Race had nothing to do with it" and she paid a very tiny light price for it, two weeks rest.
Wasn't that censorship, not forgetting how David Irving was imprisoned in Austria for questioning the Holocaust figure (not the Holocaust, mind you but just the figures)
DeleteWakakakakaka…
DeleteWhy r u trying to argue with an old moneyed mfer, who r playing with its fluid England?
Censured!
Based on stupidity?
Based on questioning a definition?
Based on causes?
This old Buffon just selectively blind to the fact that a censored info IS a censored act for covering up!
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/jan/26/irving1
DeleteDavid Irving sued author Deborah Lipstadt for defamation when she labelled him a Holocaust denier.. and lost.
David Irving said that the gas chambers at Auschwitz were only used to de-louse corpses and objects...no mass extermination was carried out there...
Holocaust Denier indeed...
He definitely broke Austrian Law and justly deserved his incarceration.
when one went to jail for words that did NOT affect nor threaten the security of Austria, it's called enforced censorship and/or state deterrent of certain words, in other words, censorship
DeleteAustria bears a heavy burden of historical guilt for its role in enabling the Nazi movement- Adolf Hitler was an Austrian, and Austria at the time actively aided and abetted the rounding up of their Jewish population, and their despatch to the Death Camps.
ReplyDeleteToday, Neo Nazis denying the Holocaust , and trying to revive extremist Nazi politics remain a national security threat in Austria,
hence the outlawing of statements denying the Holocaust, and outlawing of the Neo-Nazi movement.
David Irving broke Austrian law, and he to face the penalty, that is all.
David Irving ignored the state imposed censor to touch on anything Jewish - yes, he broke the law, but only in ignoring the censorship
Delete